Students interested in auditioning for Student Directed Showcase (SDS) familiarized themselves with two of the four SDS plays, “Governing Alice” by C. Derby Swanson and “Squad Goals” by Don Zolidis, during readings held on Friday long lunch from 12:20 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. outside the RPAC lobby.

The readings for the remaining two SDS plays, “Removing the Glove” by Clarence Coo, which will be directed by Ysabel, and “The Complete History of America (abridged)” by Adam Long, Austin Tichenor and Reed Martin, which will be directed by Josh, will be held on Tuesday from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. outside the RPAC lobby. Auditions for SDS will be held on Oct. 11 and Oct. 12 during lunch and after school.  

SDS student directors, seniors Josh Field, Richard Amarillas, Saumi Mehta and Ysabel Chen (12), led a group of ten to twelve performers during the Friday readings through dialogues from the two plays while students sat in a circle with their lunches. Students read scenes from provided copies of the play scripts and volunteered to read parts that they were interested in trying out. 

“They heard the very brief summary that we gave at school meeting; they haven’t actually read our play,” Richard said. “We want to give our performers a chance to kind of understand what the play is about, the context, the characters, a little bit because these [students] are going to be using monologues to audition.”

“Governing Alice,” directed by Saumi, tells the story of a girl named Alice who tries to honor her brother, a school valedictorian who is shot while robbing a store, at his school graduation. “Squad Goals,” directed by Richard, describes the audition process to discover an inspirational player for a hopeless basketball team coached by a middle-aged coach, Coach Morrison. 

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Sabrina Zhu

SDS directors Saumi Mehta (12) and Richard Amarillas (12) look at their copies of "Squad Goals" while listening to students read lines from the play. “Squad Goals” describes the audition process to discover an inspirational player for a hopeless basketball team coached by a middle-aged coach, Coach Morrison.

“This is a chance for everyone to see who else is going to audition and to start building the community of people who want to audition for SDS,” Ysabel said. 

“I really liked a specific scene from one of the shows where I was reading for the little sister and one of my friends was reading the main character,” Anaya Mandal (10), who attended the readings, said. “The whole thing was cool because you could see different people really getting into character and for the first time reading through the show. It was immersive and cool to get a feel for [the roles].”